Outwitting Our Nerves eBook

which he had over-reacted. Still later he had
heard the workmen on the farm say that they could
not go to the gold-fields because they had wives and
were held back by marriage. “There are no
idle words where children are,” and this little
boy had built up such a strong complex against marriage
that he could not possibly be happy as a grown man.
He was as much crippled by the old scar as is an arm
which is bent and stunted from a deep scar in the
flesh. After the analysis had broken up the adhesions,
he found himself free, able to give mature expression
to his repressed and dissatisfied love-instincts.

Psycho-analysis is not a process of addition, but
one of subtraction. Like a surgical operation,
it undoes the results of old injuries, removes foreign
material, and gives nature a chance to develop freely
in her own satisfactory way.

RE-EDUCATION WITHOUT SUBCONSCIOUS EXPLORATION

=Simple Explanation.= So far, “the way out”
sounds rather involved. It seems to require a
special kind of doctor and a complicated, lengthy
process before the exact trouble can be determined.
But, fortunately for the average nervous patient,
this lengthy process of analysis is by no means always
necessary. People with troublesome nervous symptoms,
and even those who have had a serious breakdown, are
constantly being cured by a kind of re-education which
breaks up subconscious complexes without trying to
bring them to the surface. If the dead past can
be let alone, so much the better. Sometimes a
bullet buried in the flesh sends up a constant stream
of discomfort until it is dug out and removed; but
if it has carried in no infection and the body can
adjust itself, it is usually considered better to let
it remain.

The subconscious makes its own deductions. If
resistances are not too strong it is often possible
to introduce healthy ideas by way of the conscious
reason, to break up old habits, and make over the mentality
without going to the trouble of uncovering some of
the reactions which are responsible for the difficulty.

=Moral Hygiene.= Because this is true, there has grown
up a kind of psychotherapy which is known as simple
explanation, or persuasion. As usually practised,
this kind of re-education pays very little attention
to the ultimate cause of “nerves.”
It has little to say about repressed instincts or
the real reasons for fearful emotions and physical
symptoms. Instead, it attacks the symptom itself,
contenting itself with teaching the patient that his
trouble is psychic in origin; that it is based on
exaggerated suggestibility and uncontrolled emotionalism;
that it is made out of false ideas about the body,
illogical conclusions, and unhealthy feeling-tones;
and that it may be cured by a kind of moral hygiene,
which breaks up these old habits and replaces them
with new and better ones. It tries to inculcate
the cheerful attitude of mind; to give the patient
the conviction of power; to correct his false ideas
about his stomach, his heart, or his head; to train
him out of his emotionalism; to lead him into a state
of mind more largely controlled by reason; and to make
him find some useful and absorbing work.